Name: Vegan Seafood Pasta Recipe
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 250 g tagliatelle; 100 g raw unsalted cashews, soaked for at least 4-6 hours or overnight; 2 nori seaweed sheets, crushed; juice of 1 large lemon, unwaxed; ½ tsp freshly cracked black pepper; 100 ml filtered water; 1 tbsp vegan butter; ½ medium-size onion, finely diced; 1 large garlic clove, minced; 200 g fresh spinach; 100 ml vegan white wine (e.g. this one from Sainsburys); 1-2 tsp dill; 2 tbsp capers; salt and black pepper to taste; nori sprinkles for topping (optional)

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Delicious Vegan Seafood Pasta Recipe with a creamy vegan white wine sauce – easy to make and packed with flavour!

Festive Vegan Seafood Pasta Recipe Vegan Christmas

For the past 2 years, this Vegan Seafood Pasta Recipe has been my favourite go-to recipe for Christmas – it simply has a special feel to it and I can’t really put my finger to why that is. Is pasta festive? What do you think?

For me it definitely is, and the reason why I feel like that is probably that my mum liked to get creative with the food for Christmas eve. Whilst we had a whole range of traditional dishes for Christmas when I grew up, I can clearly remember one year, that my mum created a seafood pasta for Christmas dinner – ‘just to have something else for once’.

Needless to say that I loved the dish back then (I obviously wasn’t vegan yet) and it seems to have manifested itself in my brain as the most outstanding and extravagant Christmas dinner we’ve ever had with the family. Whether Christmas or not – I believe this Vegan Seafood Pasta Recipe takes your pasta to the next level and it’s the perfect dish for a special occasion.

On Christmas 2017, I attempted to re-create a vegan version of what my mum cooked back then – but guess what? I didn’t take notes of my recipe (yup food bloggers have those kinda days too ;)). So when I decided to add the recipe to the blog for this year’s Christmas recipe round-up, I had to do quite a bit of recipe testing to get it right. But here we are, Vegan Seafood Pasta! And believe me: it turned out so super scrumptious and I’m actually tempted to make it again for Christmas this year.

What you need for this creamy vegan pasta recipe

Ingredients

tagliatelle – or another long type of pasta, such as linguine
cashew nuts – soaked for at least 4-6 hours or overnight
nori seaweed sheets
lemon juice
black pepper
dairy-free spread
onion
garlic
fresh or frozen spinach
vegan-friendly white wine
fresh or dried dill
capers
salt

Equipment

blender or food processor
large frying pan
cutting board and a sharp knife
a strainer for the fresh spinach

Simple swaps for this recipe

Pasta

You can easily swap out the type of pasta that you are using for this dish. I personally love linguine or tagliatelle, but any type will taste great – preferably a longer type of pasta (e.g. spaghetti is also a great choice!)

Onion

I use a yellow onion in this recipe but can swap it out for shallots, which work great with this type of dish.

Garlic

If you’re allergic to garlic and/or onion, please leave them out entirely. To get a little of the onion-like flavours into the dish, you can supplement with finely diced celery.

Spinach

Instead of fresh spinach, you can also use frozen whole leaf spinach, however, I recommend thawing it and removing any excess water. Simply squeeze it with your hands over a sieve, then continue with the recipe as normal.

How to quick-soak cashews

You may have read a few recipes already including cashews that call for soaking for a minimum of 4-6 hours or overnight. If you’re in a rush or simply don’t have that kind of time, but would still like to enjoy a tasty recipe (such as this one), then let me tell you a quick and simple hack to quick-soak your cashews!

The reason for soaking cashews is to soften their texture, so they can be easily blended by a blender or food processor. By doing this over a longer time period such as 4-6 hours, you’re ensuring that you are maintaining most of the nutrients in your cashew nuts. If you’re however just looking for taste in your dish and don’t mind losing a few nutrients in the process, you can also soak your nuts in boiling water for 20 minutes OR boil them on the stove for 10 minutes for the quickest way to soften your cashew nuts. Afterwards, you can continue with your recipe as you normally would.

Which white wine is vegan?

To find a vegan white wine that’s available in a store near you, I always like to recommend the website Barnivore – it’s a fantastic list of vegan alcoholic beverages including wine and beer and it’s saved me a couple of times already. Apart from some own-brand supermarket wines, I have been able to find pretty much everything on this app before, and it’s really simple to use – so why not give it a go!

This Vegan Seafood Pasta Recipe is:

Vegan
Fish Free
Available with gluten-free option (swap the pasta for a gluten-free version!)
Dairy-Free
Egg Free
Super creamy
Simply delicious!

To get the right flavour into this pasta dish, I am using a mix of seaweed, lemon, capers and white wine – alongside a few other spices and herbs. Don’t be alarmed with using 100ml white wine in the recipe – the alcohol evaporates when cooking the sauce, and you’ll be left with a fantastically balanced pasta sauce, that packs a wonderful depth of flavour.

For the creaminess in the sauce, I have used cashews that I soaked overnight – however if you’re in a rush, you can also cook the cashews in boiling water on the stove for about 20 minutes to soften them and get them ready for the sauce. (see notes above)

Let’s get cooking!